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Policy Change to Benefit Playwrights

With American playwrights and theaters perennially pinched for income, the Public Theater and Roundabout Theater Company in New York are changing policies to help writers earn a better living while allowing theaters to retain a financial stake in new plays when they go on to future theatrical, film or television productions.

The new policies are a response to growing complaints from playwrights. They say that they cannot afford to support themselves on income from their plays and that they — not theaters — are entitled to have the chance to make significant money from their work in the years after debut productions.

A study by the Theater Development Fund this winter reported that the average playwright earns $25,000 to $39,999 annually from all income sources, with about 62 percent making less than $40,000 and nearly a third pulling in less than $25,000.

Leaders of the Public said in interviews that they were immediately altering their policy on so-called subsidiary rights to help provide “a living wage” to playwrights, who often turn to writing for film and television for their livelihood. While the Public previously took an average of 10 percent of royalties for productions mounted over a 10-year period, it will now forgo that percentage until playwrights earn $75,000 in royalties from runs elsewhere. The policy change will mean a loss of at least $100,000 in annual income for the Public, which has an operating budget of $19 million. “The playwright needs the money more than the Public does,” said Oskar Eustis, the Public’s artistic director.

Roundabout executives, in announcing their revision to subsidiary rights on Tuesday, said they were acting after discussions with playwrights about making money in the theater world. Roundabout had clashed in recent years with writers who were angry about the theater’s royalty policy; in 2008, the playwright Craig Lucas removed his play “A Prayer for My Enemy” from the Roundabout’s season because of the issue of future royalties.

Roundabout had previously taken as much as 40 percent of future royalties but now will negotiate a percentage only for works that are major hits at Roundabout and run for more than 18 weeks at its Off Broadway theater, the Laura Pels, and will not seek a percentage from plays done in its Black Box theater.

“In talking to the artists, we realized that the question really came down to them wanting to feel a sense of ownership over their work, which I absolutely understand,” said Todd Haimes, Roundabout’s artistic director. The policy change is not expected to cost a significant amount for Roundabout, which has a $52 million operating budget and produces many revivals in addition to new plays.

Among other major nonprofit theaters in New York, Lincoln Center Theater has never sought subsidiary rights on any work, while Manhattan Theater Club is currently reviewing its policy, spokesmen for those theaters said. Manhattan Theater Club takes different percentages from playwrights’ royalties depending on the length of a production’s run.

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André Bishop, artistic director of Lincoln Center Theater, said his institution’s leaders and board had chosen in the 1980s to waive the potential revenue stream of subsidiary rights because they wanted to support playwrights struggling to pay rent, buy health insurance and otherwise support themselves.

“Playwrights write only so many plays and have only so many opportunities to earn money,” Mr. Bishop said. “Since Lincoln Center Theater has the ability to give a play a long run, if it is warranted, there seemed no good reason to take these rights.”

Christopher Shinn, a playwright whose Off Broadway credits include “Dying City” and “On the Mountain,” said in an interview that subsidiary rights could be a greater drain on playwrights’ livelihood than some theater companies may realize.

“A 40 percent subsidiary right would take a lot of money out of the playwright’s bank account,” he said, referring to Roundabout’s former policy. “If you really want to be a playwright, this is crucial money. One of the challenges of being a playwright right now is that a lot of theaters assume you’re writing for film or television, and don’t realize how important this money is.”

Several major nonprofit theaters nationwide have revised these subsidiary rights policies after a speech in 2007 by the playwright Richard Nelson criticizing nonprofit theaters for making money off future productions of playwrights’ work.

After Mr. Nelson’s speech, the Center Theater Group in Los Angeles, which includes the Mark Taper Forum and the Ahmanson Center, and the Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago decided to stop seeking subsidiary rights for live productions. (They retained a stake for a limited number of years in film and television productions based on plays.)

Since that policy change, the Center Theater Group has lost a six-figure revenue stream, said its artistic director, Michael Ritchie. “I’d say three to five of our playwrights are each receiving five-figure sums from royalties that they hadn’t been receiving before the policy change,” he said. “I think it’s a small but significant change.”

A version of this article appears in print on March 25, 2010, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Policy Change To Benefit Playwrights. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe